I have this ancient teacher’s copy of Mr. Wiggle Goes to the Library by Paula Craig that was passed down from my predecessor, and I used it last week with the Pre-K classes (ages 3 and 4) to help teach them about taking care of books. There is a series of Mr. Wiggle books about using the library, but this particular one seems to have long gone out of print. But it was a good introduction for Pre-K to start thinking about how to take care of books.

None of the Pre-K kids in our district check books out from the library. Most of the kindergartners don’t either, including at my school. But I may try to see how the kindergartners do in January or February and think about letting them check books out to keep in their classrooms. And it may seem really early to be talking to Pre-K kids about book care and using the library (since they’re basically 2 years away from checking anything out), but I want them to be immersed in it so that as they get older it’s like second nature.

I also read IQ Goes to the Library by Mary Ann Fraser. This was nice because it was a story and I could talk to the little ones about how IQ the mouse wants to do things in the library “just like the big kids do.” Really, they wiggled a lot and occasionally laughed at what IQ was doing, but I’m really just laying a foundation for some of this stuff to be understood when they’re older.